


What a Tangled Web I've Weaved

by largerthanlifeus



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But Endgame is still part of the game, Canonical Character Death, Endgame not endgame, Fix-It of Sorts, I break canon a lot in this, M/M, NO UNDERAGE RELATIONSHIPS, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Tony/Peter not endgame, non-canonical universe mixed into MCU universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28494420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/largerthanlifeus/pseuds/largerthanlifeus
Summary: Turns out Earth didn't need an alien invasion to destroy it. Humans did that job just fine, thank you very much. Now most of the world is inhabitable, and if there are people still out there alive, they are keeping it quiet.But inside a bunker, in the middle of nowhere, Peter and Tony have been plotting.There is no way to save this world (though, really, Earth will eventually weather this particular planetary disaster, just fine), or avenge the billions of deaths. That roll of the dice has already been played. But, maybe, there is a way to turn the hand that held the dice, to nudge the game into a new and better path.Things, of course, are never that simple; but with everything at stake, and nothing to lose, Peter Parker is more than willing to take this final bet. Even if he knows that the price of success could be just as painful as a loss.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A few thing that should be noted off the top.
> 
> 1) I'm mixing a sorta vague non-canonical universe into the MCU universe in this story. Mostly it will affect the story more in the area of Peter's character development, than in the plot. However I'm not going to 100% follow the plotline of the MCU either. Peter is a different person, so he is going to make different choices, and that will of course necessitate the plot changing. Endgame does feature in this story, though. Even if only the parts I want. Which leads me to point...
> 
> 2) Yeah, I'm going to be a bit mean to Tony and Peter. Sorry. They are not going to end up together in this, after the initial chapter, anyways. And despite the fact that Peter clearly isn't going to just stop loving Tony because he travelled back in time, Tony is not going to be interested in a kid. And I don't want him to be. Peter handles this...well, I guess you'll have to just wait and see.
> 
> 3) Peter and Bucky are what I'm shooting at, but it is going to be a shot made from many many miles away. So if slow burns are not your thing, you should best avoid. 
> 
> 4) Lastly, I thought about changing the mechanics of time travel in this story after seeing Endgame, but I eventually decided to just keep it as I originally planned. I figure I can just say that the type of time travel Tony comes up with in a dystopian future, in bunker, with only the bare minimum of computer equipment, is likely to be a lot different than what he can do with all his super special tech at his literal fingertips. 
> 
> And with that, let us begin...

Peter looked down at Tony, whose body was propped up with so many pillows that he was practically sitting straight up. It was the only way the man could sleep these days; or what passed for sleep, anyways. Even without his enhancements, Peter would be able to hear the ominous weeze that accompanied each breath. 

Sitting softly on the small bed, Peter tried to soothe out the blankets rumpled by Tony’s clenched fists. He sighed at the sight of the dirty bandages wrapped on Tony’s left hand. They needed to be changed. But with what? The last pillowcase was currently wrapped around the man’s hand, as it was. 

What he would happily give for the first aid kit that used to sit in the hall closet of his apartment growing up. Even if it had been perpetually half-empty, with a cracked lid that never closed correctly so it fell open _every single time_ he or May tried to grab it. Though, really, if Peter was going to start wishing for the impossible, he should also include several bottles of antibiotics, a trained medical doctor, and maybe a lung or two. 

Not that it was going to be the infection in his hand that killed Tony. Peter knew it, even if Tony avoided the topic with a ferocity that he could almost admire. Tony Stark, never so alive as when he was on death’s door. 

From the other room Peter heard the computer chime. 

Peter closed his eyes, let himself live in this one moment for just a few seconds more. Just him and Tony, on their bed, in the silence of their room. For one last time. 

Eventually he had to open his eyes, though. Because they were who they were, and they had things they had to do, and there would never be enough time in all of recorded history to count as _enough_. So he opened his eyes and stood up. And if he had to come back, halfway to the door, to press a small kiss to Tony's tired and wrinkled face, brushing aside the grey hair that had fallen over his husband’s eyes... 

Well, then, there wasn’t anyone left to judge him now, was there. 

“Five more minutes, then you need to get up,” Peter whispered over Tony. 

Tony groaned, which quickly turned into a hacking cough. Peter used the blanket to wipe the spit from Tony’s lips. 

“Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t quite sure that Tony was awake enough to even understand. “Next time you can save the world from your bed, I promise.” 

Not that there would be a next time, or a bed, or even Tony-- _his_ Tony--if they actually succeeded this time. 

Because everything had a price, and Peter knew nothing so precious as _Time_ could ever come cheap. 

It had to be worth it, though. 

There was nowhere else to go. 


	2. ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In an effort to not stress myself out, and thereby quit writing, I'm really not going to be stressing about the length of chapters. They are going to be what they are. Some will be only a scene long, some longer. But at this point I'm just happy to have stuff down on page. Thanks for putting up with it.

Peter Parker woke up three seconds to total annihilation. 

It was, perhaps, their most glaring flaw in their most brilliant of plans, that while they had been decently sure of the general _when_ \--and thereby reasonably sure the the general _where_ \--the exact nature of re-entry was, at best, nothing more than a couple of crossed fingers. 

And with their luck being what it was, it should not surprise either of them that when all was said and done, it was practically inevitable that Peter would find himself fifteen years in the past and no more than two feet in front of a quickly oncoming truck. 

Instincts, long sent into hibernation out of disuse, screamed at him. 

He flicked his wrist and-- _oh god, thank god_ \--a fresh string of webbing shot out. The loud blare of the truck’s horn blasted through his head as he jerked to the right. His feet hit the siding on the truck. _BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM._ And then he was back in the air, flying towards what looked like some kind of empty restaurant sandwiched right in the middle of a whole line of various small shops. 

Peter landed about ten feet off the ground, next to an awning. The brick was cool under his bare hands. The shadow of the green awning hid him from the streetlights, but, after a quick glance around, he was reasonably sure that there was no one to see him. The whole area was held in the brief pause between night and day. Where the partiers had slumped back towards their beds, and the working folk had yet to rouse. It was not silent--Peter knew the terrible weight of a silent city, and this was _thankfully_ not that--but it felt like the world was holding its breath. 

The rough brown brick scratched against the cheap cotton of his mask where he rested his head. Peter tried desperately to catch his breath. His heart was pounding in his ears. He knew that he needed to move, to find somewhere where he could pin down where he was and when he was. Figuring out how to move his legs should probably be step one, though. 

At least he still remembered how to swing. Thank god he had come back after he had his webs. 

He didn’t remember it being quite so terrifying to be Spiderman. 

Eventually, though, the blast of adrenaline--while not gone--slagged, and Peter forced himself back into action. Imminent death was a great distraction, but he could feel his brain starting to grind again and he could almost hear a great ticking down towards what was going to be a truly unpleasant realization. 

If he had any say about it, the first thing everyone knew about Spiderman should not be that he was found having a massive emotional breakdown in front of an empty pizzeria. 

Absolutely no one would take him seriously after that. 

It was not something that he had done recently--scaling walls factored surprisingly little in post-apocalyptic bunker life--but it seemed it was still something of a second nature for him. Or maybe the body remembered what the brain did not. Either way, the trip up and over the three-story wall was quick and easy. 

Sadly a plan was not waiting on top of the roof. There was nary a gift bow in sight. Nor any handy discarded newspapers-- _were those even around?_ \--or giant blinking arrows pointing him in the right direction. 

There was a very dim light hanging next to a locked door. It held a disturbing number of dead bugs and a few cigarette butts at the bottom of the cracked glass casing. 

He sat on the blue plastic milkcrate next to the door. He could tell by the dip in the plastic that he was not the first person to bear weighty contemplations on its frames. 

Peter pulled off his mask, rubbing his hands through his short sweat-slicked hair. Looking down at the mask he tried to decide whether to laugh or wince in secondhand embarrassment. 

_Was that something you could feel for yourself?_

He had to be young. Whomever he was ten minutes ago was less of a Spider _man_ , and more of a Spider _ling_. The mask was little more than a red beanie with eye holes cut out. He traced the, no doubt, meticulous placement of the black sharpie drawn lines. They were so innocently earnest it _hurt_. 

_Jesus._

“It’s a miracle we made it past eighteen,” Peter said. Then tried desperately to wrap his brain around the absurd voice that just came out of his mouth. There is no way he _ever_ sounded like _that_. 

How did anyone, ever, take him seriously when he went around sounding like a… 

Peter groaned, his ridiculously smooth hand over his unwrinkled face, and tried to remember what plan could have possibly necessitated him have to relive the joys of teenagerdom all over again. He had kicked no puppies. Pushed in front of no grandmothers. He had been the _friendly neighborhood Spider-man_. Well, right up until there were a distinct lack of neighborhoods to be friendly in. 

This was all Tony’s doing; Peter just knew it. Always had to have the last fucking laugh. Always had to have the last word, always needed to be the smartest in the room, take the whole of the fucking covers. Peter swore the next time he saw the asshole he was going to-- 

_Nothing_. Peter was going to do nothing. Because the next time Peter saw Tony, Tony wouldn’t even know who he was. And Peter could kick and scream and cry and all Tony would do is look for the nearest exit because who wanted to deal with the mental breakdown of some fucking teenager he never saw before. 

He bent over, his right hand pushing into his chest, trying to get a breath, but it felt like someone had punched him in the throat. 

And even when he was able to finally drag in some air, the sound of it. The raspy wet wheeze. It sent him right back to countless nights sitting next to Tony, holding him up, praying that maybe the next hacking cough would be the one that would finally clear his lungs enough to get just a little more air. He had learned to tailor his prayers to his rapidly diminishing expectations. Let him get better. Let him sleep through the night. Let him get to sleep. Let him, oh god, just let him keep breathing. 

It should make it better, _it should_ , that out there, somewhere, he had finally got an answer to his prayers. Tonight Tony, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he was breathing. Free and clear. And Peter wanted, desperately, for that to be enough. Because it had to be enough. 

It didn’t make the scream tied around his throat any less painful, though. 


	3. TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meant to get this up earlier last week, but then my entire country went freaking insane and it was not at all conducive to creative endeavors. Thanks to everyone for hanging around for these shorter chapters. They probably will get longer as I get more into the story, but for now I'll just let them be.

It took Peter nearly an hour to get back to his aunt’s apartment. He kept finding himself getting turned around, or expecting landmarks to exist that would not come about for several years. Even when things were where they should be, he found himself looking down on them and only knowing them by the nagging feeling that they were important, once upon a time. Failing to truly grasp anything but the most fleeting memories of a life that existed where streets and stores meant anything more than a game of “ _do you remember…?_ ”. 

The paint around his old bedroom window was cracked and flaking. Rust showing through in speckles. It still eased open quietly, though. Proof that he had been at this Spiderman thing long enough to know the value of a silent ingress and egress. 

The apartment was quite around him. He could hear quiet shuffling from above him, but nothing that would signal that May was home. Tossing his mask and web-shooters on to his unmade bed, he opened his door and poked his head out, making sure his way was clear. After checking the small kitchen and living room, he pressed his ear to May’s door. Nothing. 

Just to make sure he knocked, waited, and then checked the room. Her bed was slightly rumpled, like she could only be bothered to throw the covers back into a semblance of order. Peter couldn’t help but stare, pressing a hand to his stomach as a fond, if painful, twist of _something_ sparked inside him. 

God, but he had missed May. 

God, but he was glad she was not here. 

Peter returned to his room, chucked his suit into his closet, and then went to make use of every drop of shitty indoor apartment plumbing. He turned his face away from the mirror, when he passed by. 

When all the hot water was gone, and all the lukewarm water had turned biting cold, he finally emerged. He was still slightly dripping when he crossed the hall. Every swipe of the obscenely soft towel had sent shivers down his spine, making him want to twist away from the cloth almost as much as he wanted to bury his face in it and never come up. 

It was halfway through dressing--a well-worn t-shirt and some sweatpants, because he could not fathom why he owned jeans that seemed made to fit someone with pretzel legs--that he figured out that the shaking in his hands might have less to do with the ever-oncoming panic attack, and more to do with the fact that he had no clue when the last time he had eaten was. 

The thing about the end of the world is, you are always hungry. When you are awake, when you are asleep. Hungry. When you don’t have anything to eat, you’re starving, and even when you do have food in front of you, you are still achingly hungry. Because there is never enough food, and what you have needs to last. 

There are no markets to shop at. And after a few years, scavenging is an exercise in disappointment. Hunting is great, when you can actually find animals. And even then, preserving the meat is hard. Especially when you grew up in the twenty-first century and no one ever bothered to teach you anything more than “put it in the fridge”. He and Tony were smart. But it turns out being really fucking smart has its limits. No one, it seemed, thought to instruct a multi-billionaire or a kid from the 21st century how to live and thrive in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. At least until they found James. Or James found them. 

They could grow crops, but farming took time and attention, and was not conducive to a life that sometimes needed to pack up and go on the run in the middle of the night. By the end they had been more stationary. No need to run, no one to hide from. Finding viable seeds after years and years of human absence had been the difficult part. 

Peter couldn’t remember the last time he had not been hungry. 

But, as he stood shaking in front of May’s fridge, he realized that for the first time, in a very long time, he didn’t have to be. 

The fridge hummed under his fingers as he tightened his hold on the handle. The seal gave way under his light tug. 

Peter took it all in, in the barest of seconds. The milk, the eggs, the various cartons of leftovers stacked haphazardly among the shelves. A thousand and one items he hadn’t seen or tasted in a dozen years or more. 

He could hear Tony’s victorious cry from across decades of time and space. 

The fridge door slammed shut, and Peter clung to the countertop behind him. 

He eyed the now closed door wearily. A hysterical laugh bubbling up his throat. 

The stacks of cans in the cupboard were a comfort. 

Peter pulled out a can of chicken noodle with a fond wave of nostalgia. It’d been years since they’d been able to eat canned food. Despite what the movies would tell you, canned goods are not forever. Most are not even for a decade. 

He grabbed a pot, dumped the goods inside, and then carefully ran over the inside of the can with water from the tap. He emptied the rinsed can into the pot, and then did it again. 

Opening another cupboard, he spotted a bag of bread. He stared in awe. Carefully he unwound the tie holding the bag shut, and breathed in through the opening. He drew one slice out, the soft center denting even under his most careful grip. He’d eat the whole slice, Peter decided, feeling decadent. 

When the soup was boiling he moved it to a cool burner. After three tries he found the drawer with the silverware. Lifting the pot up with his left hand he used the large spoon to eat, barely letting the liquid cool before slipping it inside his mouth. Warm saltiness exploded on his taste buds then coated his teeth and his throat. He licked his lips, not letting a drop escape. Next he used the spoon to draw out a flat round of carrot, placing it on his tongue. The sweet mix of earthy sugar and oily salt caused him to close his eyes and groan. On and on it went. Peter hardly needed to chew the chunks of chicken meat. The slippery noodles slid down him, soft and warm. When the pot was near empty he took a careful corner of the bread slice and ran it along the sides. The slightly damp sponge of the bread broke apart in his mouth. The next bite was even better. The metal was nearly bone cold by the time he licked up the last of the crumbs. 

Peter’s stomach sat heavy. A shocking feeling. 

Clean and fed he stumbled back towards his bed. There was nothing he needed to do that could not wait a few more hours. No one he needed to see that would not be alive when he woke. The ghosts of his past were not yet born, and Peter let that thought comfort him as he swaddled himself in worn blue sheets and a lumpy comforter. 

And he did not reach out his hand. And he did not strain his ears to catch uneven breaths. And he pretended that a pillow held tightly to his chest could keep him warm, if only he held his eyes closed tight enough to block out the light of day. 


	4. THREE

_Peter stood on the edge of the dock. On any other day he would have sat down, rolled up his pants, and enjoyed the cool waters of the lake. Today he simply stood, staring, at the grey cloud hanging above the waters. He watched the smoky haze swirl above the lapping waves._

_The sun, an angry orange ball, hovered inches over the horizon, barely distinguishable from the smear of red creeping ever closer towards Peter and the lake._

_The fire was coming._

_Back at their cabin Tony was busy packing. Peter should be back there, helping, but he had needed a moment to breathe. Almost choking to death by the lake had to be preferable to choking the life out of Tony._

_The only other option was to go back into the cabin, with Tony, and pick the fight right back up where they had left off. Their tempers had been rubbing across each other ever since the lightning storm three days ago. Peter didn’t know what had been worse, the indomitable fear of what could be, or the relentless anger at what had come to pass._

_The Canadian west coast had been getting drier. The rains sparse. Even in the cold of winter the sky had stayed clear and blue. A cross look could have sparked a fire in the miles of pine that surrounded the lake where he and Tony had set up shop for the last couple years. Nearly five hours of lightning earlier that week had been their worst nightmare. It had become a game of where, instead of if._

_And the where was clearly to the east. And the south. Maybe the north. It had been hard to tell once the smoke creeped in._

_Soon after they had moved into the area they had set up a satellite array on the nearby mountain. But staying on the mountain itself had been too cumbersome. They had found an open bit of land by the lake at the foot of the mountain. With enough line of sight they had managed to make it work. But with the smoke filling the sky the connection was intermittent at best. Add in the fact that the steep decrease in light meant the power cells were not charging at anywhere near optimal levels, and it meant that they had little choice but to prioritize their energy output._

_By that time they knew the inevitable was coming, anyways._

_The lake was too small to reliably create a fire break large enough to keep them safe. And even if it did, there was no way to know how long the fire would burn. They could only seal the cabin so well. They could only keep the batteries charged so much. Both of them had known they were operating on borrowed time as it was._

_That didn’t make them any more happy about it._

_Two years was long enough to start to feel like the borrowed cabin was theirs. That the small and sometimes frustrating life they had started to carve out had been the beginnings of a home. Peter had broken his arm installing the solar panels on the roof. Tony had nearly burned the whole place down trying to cook a rabbit they had, somehow, managed to catch._

_The fire was not going to stop though. There was no way to put it out. No one to put it out. It was flee or burn in pointless petulance._

_“Peter!”_

_Peter sighed, rubbing at the top of his head. Break was over._

_“Peter!”_

_“I’m coming!” he yelled back. He took one last look at the lake. Trying to remember it as it had been. It had been so clear when they had first walked along its shores. Now everything was dingy and grey. Their whole world was leached of color._

_“Peter, don’t make me come over there!”_

_“Christ,” Peter grumbled. He turned back towards the cabin. “I’m fucking com--”_

_His heart stuttered. There was nothing there. The cabin was gone, and the smoke seemed to be billowing in from all sides. His eyes stung. Tears gathered at the corners, and he tried to blink past the ache. He tried to call for Tony, but when he went to draw in breath it got caught in his throat. Bent over double he tried to hack and cough his way free. Panic raced through his veins. Everything drew close. He had to breathe. He had to find Tony. He had to go. Now. Now! NOW!_

_A weight pressed down on his shoulder. “Peter!”_

_Relief smacked him in the chest. He spun around, desperate to get to Tony._

_The hand on his arm jerked once and---_

Peter rolled over the side of the bed, crashing in a tangle of sheets and sweat stained clothes. 

“Peter! Oh my god!” May said, from above him. 

He pulled the sheet wrapped around his head down, and looked up to see her startled face. Peter scrambled up, twisting around and tugging the sheet and comforter off him. 

“May! I can…” Peter looked frantically around him. “ _Aunt_ May. I. Um. _What are you doing home?_ ” 

May’s face lost a lot of its shock. In fact it was edging towards anger, if he remembered that eyebrow raise correctly. “What am _I_ doing home? What are _you_ doing home, Peter? It’s two o’clock. Why the f--” 

She cut herself off, looking to the right and taking a deep breath. Her hair was coming loose from where she had it tied back. Judging by the way her heart was pounding under the loose nursing scrubs, she had probably just rushed out of her shift to get home. 

“The school called me at work,” she said, forcibly calm, when she turned back to face him. “They said you never showed up. I called you, four times. _Four._ ” 

Peter looked frantically around the room. He tried to remember where he would have put his phone. Goddammit. He didn’t have it on him when he got here. There wouldn’t have been any place to put it. So he must have left it in his room before he went out last night. Right? 

“I, uh…” He tried to subtly shift the piles around on the floor by his bed with his foot. “I think I lost it. My phone.” 

Wait, was he still keeping his stuff in his backpack? If he had webbed his backpack to the back of something, he was fucked. There was no way he would remember where he had put it fifteen years ago. Maybe they could trace the signal? Could they do that yet? His StarkPhone could be...but, yeah, there was no way fifteen year old him was affording a StarkPhone. Though if he lost a StarkPhone his aunt would probably think it’d be cheaper to kill and replace him, instead of the phone. 

“You lost it.” 

“Maybe?” Peter hedged. 

“How on earth did you lose it? You were texting with Ned last night. I saw you.” 

Fuck. 

“Where the…” May grabbed at her hair. “Peter. _Peter,_ did you go out last night?” 

He rubbed his face, trying to find a way out of this. Fucking fuck. 

“Maybe.” 

She glared at him, silently. 

“Yeah. Ok, yes.” He sank down on the bed, defeated. “I had to do something. It was really important, though!” 

You’d think that having already gone through this whole teenager thing once before that he’d be able to come up with better excuses than that. _He’d_ never buy that, and May was...yeah, she didn’t look terribly convinced either. 

“Goddammit, Peter.” She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s it? That’s why you snuck out, after midnight, in the middle of the fu--reaking city? Something _‘important’_? At least think up a better lie while you are out there, doing god knows what. Do you even know what kind of...do you know what I would have done if you… why can’t you just...” 

He felt exhausted. Leaning forward, his head hanging down, he could feel the muscles in his back knotting up. 

This had not been how he had wanted this first meeting to go. He had not really known _how_ exactly he did want it to go. But not this. Not with anger and disappointment. 

Not with May looking at him like she didn’t know what to do with him. 

The bed shifted. Peter could almost feel the heat of his aunt, even from a foot away. 

May sighed. “ _Fucking hell_.” 

A small smile tugged at his lips. Peter didn’t think he was supposed to have heard that. 

“I know I’m not--” May took a deep breath. “I know you miss him. Ok, Peter. I get that. I miss him too. And I know he was the one you went to. When things, you know...” 

Peter’s entire world screeched to sudden stop and narrowed all around him. 

“...and I get that there are things you are not really ready to say. To me. Or to anyone. And that’s…” 

The air in his lungs felt like concrete. 

“...that’s fine. Ok. I don’t want to push. But you gotta know I’m still here, right? I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. And I may not get it like...like _he_...like he did, ok…” 

Ben _. Uncle Ben._ Oh, god. 

“...but, Peter, anything... _anything_ that is important enough to make you sneak out at night? You can tell me that stuff. Ok? You _need_ to tell me that stuff, because…” 

He must have just… 

Peter can’t remember. When. He knew, vaguely. It was before. Before he became _Spiderman_. But that was half a life ago. The grief and anger and the guilt, so much guilt, had been a well worn thing by the end. Uncle Ben had been the first, but there had been so many since then. So many faces. So many responsibilities. 

“...because it is just us now. Yeah? And I’m going to be the adult and do all the shit... _stuff_ I need to do for you, but I don’t know how to be him for you. So if something is going on, you gotta tell me. I can’t fix everything. But I’m not gonna let you do this alone.” 

What was Peter to say to that? He couldn’t say the truth. That up until Tony--maybe even after Tony--she had been the one person he trusted most in the world. That there had been days (months) where he wanted nothing more than to go knock on her door. Tell her...everything. Anything. 

He couldn’t say that none of this was because of Ben. Even if in some small way it would always be just a little bit about him. The reason changed, over the years, but when the guilt was gone, the things Ben had taught him, those small important things, helped make him into the man he was. Spider and human. 

Peter couldn’t tell her the truth. The truth that the Peter she knew was gone. And with him all the pent up anger and teenage angst wrapped up in still fresh webbing. 

So he didn’t say anything. Because even if he couldn’t tell her the truth, he couldn’t tell her a lie, either. 

And when he hugged her, he let her think his tears were for the uncle/father he had just lost, and not for the boy who he stopped from ever living. The kid she would never get to see grow into a man. The life he would never have again. 

He hugged her, because hugging her was never a lie. It was the closest he was ever going to get to the truth. 


End file.
